In the opening keynote speech at AD:TECH London this week, Nikesh Arora Vice President European Operations at Google announced a new programme for search marketing agencies (SEM's) due to launch in the spring of 2006 which the Search Marketing Asociation (SMA-UK) President Andy Atkins Kruger described as a very welcome move.  “It means that for the first time agencies will have clear guidelines about what Google expects and to work to in terms of achieving agency commission. That is very good news for SMA members.”  The programme involves a qualification process which is performance related and the SMA-UK is talking to Google about this.

A shift in Googles relationship with SEM's has been on the cards for some time, see my previous post about head hunters trying to recruit from SEM's which seems to have pre-empted it. I spoke to a number of people from other large SEM's that had been contacted by recruiters about roles at Google, both from the UK and US.